Authored by Josh Hammer via The Epoch Times,
Higher education might be the most pressing domestic issue confronting America today. As currently structured and carried out, higher education is a blight upon the nation—an affirmative hindrance to our efforts in aiding human flourishing and securing the common good. It is possible that no propagated belief in modern American history has been more intellectually, experientially and fiscally ruinous than the notion that a four-year bachelor’s degree-bestowing bender is a necessary rite of passage for entering adulthood.
Caviling about the systemic corruption of the academy is perhaps old hat. By the time William F. Buckley Jr. wrote “God and Man at Yale” in 1951, the metamorphosis of America’s ivory tower into something closely approximating a fifth column was well underway. But the situation has, in recent decades, worsened; it has metastasized into a cancer whose tendrils spread the latest faddish developments in intersectional, anti-American, anti-Western “woke-ism” all throughout the land.
It is both terrifying and perverse that America’s intellectual gatekeepers—the “elite”-forming, credentialing institutions that separate the “deplorables” from the ruling class—impress self-loathing pablum upon impressionable young minds. With some notable exceptions, American higher education today comprises madrasas of wokeness fundamentally hostile to the American regime and the American way of life. Many of the far left’s most toxic ideas, whether moral relativism, socialism, “anti-racism” or multiculturalism, either begin on campus or gain steam there. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that one of the more popular policies in conservative egghead circles today is to expand loan access to, and accreditation support for, trade school alternatives to traditional four-year bachelor’s degree-granting programs.
Intellectual bankruptcy notwithstanding, there are manifold more tangible problems associated with the failed higher education status quo. Four years spent on campus between the ages of 18 and 22 means four prime years forgone from acquiring vocational skills, advancing a career, and mating and forming families. It also often means, due in part to the federal government’s effective monopoly over the student loan industry, four years of willful indebtedness to major in such patently silly “subjects” as “gender studies.” Student loans are now the second-largest source of collective American debt, behind only mortgage debt. By some staggering estimates, Americans have over $1.5 trillion in student loan debt.
The modern Democratic Party is heavily reliant on woke college graduates for political support, and many on the left have warmed in recent years to large-scale student loan “forgiveness” (at least as a halfway measure, compared to the far left’s support for universal free college). Most recently, the likely incoming president, Democrat Joe Biden, has called for “immediate” forgiveness of $10,000 of student loan debt for borrowers.
This policy is idiotic in the extreme and brazenly immoral. Republicans and sensible Democrats must unite to defeat it.
The higher education-student loan complex is in desperate need of more transparency and accountability—not more bailouts. A prudent first step would be for creditors, whether public or (ideally) private, to present clear information about salaries and career paths for graduating high school seniors to consider before they commit to taking out hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans to major in “ethnic studies.” The worst possible thing we could do would be a mass bailout of this nature, which would initiate a vicious, never-ending cycle of tuition spikes, more indebtedness and more bailouts. It is a quintessential exercise in trying to apply a Band-Aid to a grievously slit artery.
Think the moral hazard problems associated with the 2008 bank bailouts were bad? Wait until you see where this irresponsible experiment could end.
Numerous other problems abound. Such a bailout is inherently regressive, as it would disproportionately benefit woke children who decided they could afford four years of the decadent ivory tower wasteland, and disproportionately harm taxpayers who themselves did not go to college. Such a bailout would also be manifestly unfair to those graduates who have diligently worked to pay off their loans in earnest—even if it meant forsaking jobs they otherwise would have preferred to take in favor of jobs that pay more. In other words, such a bailout would inculcate the worst lessons in fiscal imprudence and recklessness—all while letting the universities off the hook for their running what amounts to one sustained racket.
American higher education needs a wrecking ball—not a bailout.
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The minute I understood that a huge portion of student loans were becoming a debt the IRS collection agency would be responsible for collecting and not one dime of the loan could be discharged in bankruptcy “Bend Over Here It Comes”!
So as it turns out the college is paid , the bank is paid and the Graduate with a degree in Lesbian underwater basket weaving wants me to bail them out , how about NO FUCK OFF !
I was 18 standing on the deck of an oil tanker under construction by 26 I sold my first house and had a modest single home built in a suburban area 20 minutes from work . We were called STEEL MEN back then the backbone of American industry !
In a decade we became over paid bums who did not deserve high wages and secure health and retirement benefits ! In fact the schools our tax base built and our own elected officials now supported by oligarchs of Wall Street To K-Street To Capital Street dismantled American Industry for a forty year run up of profits on cheap overseas labor and unfair trade practices decimating the tax paying middle class and leaving treasonous political animals running up debt into the trillions so a government employee still retires in the mid 50’s with life left to live and laying the debt on the industrial middle class workforce with no gainful position or ability to pay up for the mess THEY created and bail out the skulls of mush from the debt for an education preparing them to work the drive thru window WTF . The fact there is no job for these highly educated people with a very high opinion of self worth is not my problem !
I paid for private school K thru 12 and 4.5 years of college for my child who earned an advanced degree in health care . Now gainfully employed for a top internationally known hospital and is earning a good pay check !
Now you want us to bail out people who followed bad advice from administrators , professors and college advisors and don’t earn enough to cover the debt these smarter than me college educated people convinced you to sign for . There are two places to look for fault in this 1) the mirror 2) the college . We on the other hand owe you nothing unless of course you want to fully fund my pension that was bankrupted in 1984 and the losses never recovered on my IRA’s or the interest that should have been paid on my cash savings over the last 30 years
Get the point young people ! Learn to be frugal , save a little when you can heed good advice and filter out the BULL SHIT 99% of what you hear is BULL SHIT especially from a politician !
Anarchyst,
Good rant. You’ve been saying this for some time. My belief is, this is all brought to you and I via G.R.E.E.D.
Personally, I could care less. This ship is going down. If these 18 year old’s were duped, why do I care if they get bailed out? The nation’s debt ain’t getting paid. No way, no how.
I do think student debt should be allowed to be written off in bankruptcy though. That and student loans should NOT be backed by the taxpayer. Man, do we live in fraudulent times.
that wasn’t anarchyst, it was bm, who has gone anono, probably a smart thing to do–the nsa can’t track an anono the way they can a glock man or a red man–
bm or bl? That sure sounded like Anarchyst.
the guy in the song,not the singer–
Interesting. I have not seen him in a long time either.
Thank you for what you did for this country. Working with your hands and having tactile experience is, IMHO, a noble undertaking.
I wish at a younger age, say 25 years ago, that I had held people like you in higher regard. That is one of my regrets.
“”Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness Plan Is Idiotic And Immoral””
I would beg to differ with this statement as it stands. In today’s world of identity politics and fragile feelings, it is entirely appropriate to have other people do the tasks which you find offensive or pay the bills which you feel are holding you back from achieving you fullest potential. Never mind that part of maturing into a fully functioning adult being largely based upon taking personal responsibility for your decisions and actions. It has come down to what we were told many years ago about the reason people can not be held responsible any more. It is all societies fault. Had society not been so harsh on ‘poor little Johnny” he could have really made something of himself instead of doing 20 to life for that liquor store job.
True, it is not society’s fault but, I do say it is government’s fault. Honestly, if the government is going to be all powerful, then they shoulder all the blame. You could, if you spent time thinking about it, show that the fed.gov and many many states are to blame for all our ills.
Nope, the students are responsible for their debts. If they were stupid enough to sign for those loans then you pay them. Not me not your parents, not the government. You might appreciate the education if you worked for them.
While I agree in principle the whole thing was designed to trap the idiots so they could be used, literally, as the rabid mobs on the street by the, in all but name, Bolsheviks. Everyone gets their graft in this system except the schmucks who signed up for the loans.
What would happen if the entire loan balance of those mostly useless degrees was forgiven AND at the same time, it became illegal to get any loan for education and a student had to pay for it? It would collapse 90%+ of all of these colleges and universities and people would be forced to do something real and the surviving institutions would offer degrees of value like they did 150 years ago perhaps?
Yes, those with the debt would be “off the hook” but the hook would actually be then caught in the Universities.
Government putting taxpayers ultimately on the hook for trillions of dollars in student loan guarantees was immoral to begin with. Government itself is immoral to begin with.
Yep, make student loads dischargable and release fed.gov from all loan issuence.
in the late 70s a kid could spend summer break from college working at a factory and earn enough to pay for college and more
That is what I did in the UK. Worked as a door to door salesman, on a trawler, in a corner shop and as a grease monkey. Learned more about life doing that than at university.
this is so blatantly unfair to parents who saved & kids who had to forgo college “experiences” like going away to school instead of staying home & living w/mom/dad–